Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen's fragile majority in parliament is in danger of shrinking to two seats after another member of parliament threatened to withdraw support from the fast-sinking coalition, Reuters reported. Cowen, who needs votes from his junior coalition partners the Greens, independents and some dissidents in his own party to push through another austerity budget in December, received a blow on Friday when one independent withdrew his support. A colleague in his own Fianna Fail party, Mattie McGrath told the Sunday Business Post, he would not support the government unless hospital cuts in his southern constituency were reversed. "The reconfiguration (of hospital services) has to be taken off the table, that's my baseline," McGrath, who voted against the government for the first time in June, told the newspaper, according to an advance release on Saturday. "The hospital is a core issue for me. It's sacrosanct as far as I'm concerned," he said. Cowen already knows his government can scarcely afford any further defections if it hopes to pass the budget, which will include at least 3 billion euros of savings to tackle the worst budget deficit in the euro zone.
